Genre: Thriller
Premise: A broke TaskRabbit in debt to her estranged sugar daddy holds a stolen painting
she’s been tasked to deliver for ransom, leading to a deadly cat-and-mouse chase
across the weirdest corners of New York City.
About: This script finished fairly high on last year’s Black List. It is being produced by Rian Johnson’s production company.
Writer: Caroline Glenn
Details: 113 pages
Anger is helpful in some situations.
I’m not convinced it’s helpful when writing a script.
The pages start to feel more like you’re working out your issues than it does you’re writing a screenplay.
Let’s see where that experiment takes us.
25 year old Parker lives in New York where she’s barely surviving. She’s got her roommate, Hallie, an aspiring actress who does feet stuff on Only Fans. And the two are struggling to make this month’s rent. Parker needs 900 bucks by 8am tomorrow or they’re both kicked out. Parker tells Hallie not to worry. She’ll handle it.
Parker heads out on the town, turning on her Task Rabbit app. She does tasks like taking things out of boxes. Putting together Ikea furniture. Finally, she gets a legit job from someone named Grace, who gives her a box to deliver across the city.
Almost immediately, men start appearing out of nowhere attempting to snatch the box from her. So Grace runs into the M&M store in Times Square, opens the box, and finds a stolen painting worth 50 million dollars. Someone placed a tracker on the painting, which is why all these men are chasing her.
Back with Grace, we meet Ben, her boss slash fkbuddy, who screams at her when he learns that she gave the painting to someone instead of delivering it herself. Parker then calls them and says she knows what the painting is and wants 50 million dollars or she’s going to destroy it.
During this negotiation, her phone dies, which forces her to go to her old Sugar Daddy’s house nearby where she will have sex with him in order to covertly charge her phone and speed off. After she does this, she goes to her cruel ex-boyfriend’s place to steal his gun, just in case she needs it. While there, she talks to a girl who says their mutual friend is Hitler’s great grandaughter.
She eventually meets back up with Hallie, who informs her that these people she’s making a deal with probably aren’t going to give her the money. She then berates Hallie with insults and tells her she’s a terrible actress. We learn that Grace was actually playing Ben and was going to steal the painting from him. So now Parker has to deal with Grace. It’s time to make the exchange. Will she survive? Gosh, I sure hope she doesn’t.
A script that celebrates the worst of humanity – that asks us to endure 15 people who suck – is a hard sell to any reader. And it’s an especially hard sell to me.
The movies that most resonate with me are the ones that offer some element of hope. You’re introduced to a good person who’s struggling. That person then endures two hours of challenges where they keep getting knocked down and keep getting knocked down and keep getting knocked down. Despite all that, they keep getting up, until finally, they overcome the big bad wolf. I then leave the theater thinking, “If they can do it, I can do it.”
I’m not saying that’s the winning formula for all movies. But it’s the winning formula for most of them.
That formula, however, falls apart if the person taking us on that journey sucks.
And Parker sucks.
Throughout this story she demonstrates that she’s selfish, narcissistic, manipulative, judgmental, mean-spirited, not to mention morally bankrupt, as she’s invested a large portion of her life into being a sugar baby.
That’s not to say that a sugar baby character couldn’t be sympathetic under the right circumstances. One of the most beloved characters of all time is Vivan Ward, a prostitute (Pretty Woman). There were major differences in that character, though. She was nice. She was sweet. She had morals. She was funny. She saw the best in others.
Do you see what I’m getting at here?
How you shape your main character is crucial, especially when writing something dark. If you’re not careful, the darkness can swallow your script whole, dragging it into the Sarlacc Pit. The experience can easily turn into a bitter, angry cry for help.
This script also proves that GSU is not a guarantee that your script will be good.
Cause this script has tons of GSU.
In fact, it uses the most reliable GSU formula there is:
GOAL – MONEY.
STAKES – IF YOU DON’T GET IT, YOUR LIFE IS OVER.
URGENCY – 12 HOURS.
Money money money money money.
Money, stakes, and urgency have been responsible for hundreds of great movies.
But, if you plop that formula down onto a script with not even a single likable character? It won’t work. Cause a reader isn’t going to be happy if they hate every time a character starts speaking.
And the thing was, the main character here started off so likable! If you would’ve just left that alone, we end up rooting for Parker the whole screenplay. In her first scene, she’s up for a job interview at a museum and when the interviewer makes fun of her lack of education, Parker digs in and fights. She makes strong points about how it isn’t her fault that she couldn’t afford Yale. She worked with what she had. Readers LOVE characters who fight. Love them! So we were all in.
Then Parker proceeded to insult and look down upon every single character who entered the script, even her supposed friends. Every time that happened, I liked Parker less.
So, you’re probably wondering how it is that this script is so high on the Black List. Note that I never said the writing was bad. Actually, it’s quite good. The writer clearly has a voice. I may not like that voice. But there are a lot of unhappy cynical people on the planet who are more likely to resonate with these miserable characters than I am.
And I suppose someone could make an argument that Parker is easier to root for than I’m making her out to be. I just, personally, don’t like people who hate everyone. In their world, they’re the only person on the planet who is worthy and everyone else sucks. That’s Parker in a nutshell.
This had the potential to work. Had you made Parker a good person caught in a bad situation, many of the script’s issues would have resolved themselves. But as it stands, this is the kind of story that lingers in the worst way, leaving the reader drained and disheartened long after they’ve finished.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Be mindful of injecting personal commentary into your script. The goal is to immerse your reader so completely in the story that they forget they’re reading (this is the essence of suspension of disbelief). However, if you repeatedly insert your own opinions, especially overtly political or emotionally charged asides, you risk shattering that illusion. The moment the reader becomes aware of the writer’s presence, they’re pulled out of the narrative, making it far less impactful.
A peek into the mind of the modern successful spec script writer
Genre: Not going to tell you
Premise: A young boat cruise bartender who smuggles drugs up and down her ship’s route meets an intriguing but perpetually drunk man who takes an interest in her trade.
About: Zach Dean has been writing scripts that have appeared on The Black List for years. More recently, he wrote the Chris Pratt Amazon sci-fi movie, “The Tomorrow War.” He also wrote Apple’s upcoming “The Gorge.” He kind of reminds me of a supernatural sci-fi Taylor Sheridan. This script sold for big money to Lionsgate. It will star Johnny Depp in what he’s planning to be his big comeback role.
Writer: Zach Dean
Details: 112 pages
When it comes to what type of spec scripts you should be writing to both sell your script and get a movie made, Zach Dean is a good writer to study. He seems to have tapped into this formula for writing scripts in the 2020s that people both respond to and, ultimately, produce.
Like a lot of Zach Dean scripts, there are twists and turns galore in Day Drinker. So, if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the review. Or, at the very least, seek out the script and read it yourself first. Cause the only way to talk about this script is by talking about its unique plot developments. Someone in the comments section should have access to the script.
Lorna is a bartender on a cruise ship called the MS Amnesia which hobnobs around the coast of Spain, stopping at every little port to allow its passengers to enjoy the wares of Spain and its surrounding countries.
One day, while she’s getting ready for work, a man named Kelly shows up. All Kelly wants is a drink. All Kelly ever wants is a drink. She’s not open yet but she makes an exception. He seems jovial enough. But if there was any indication that this would be romantic, she shuts it down immediately. She doesn’t like men. She likes women. Strangely, Kelly seems unbothered.
When the two get to a port in Morocco, Lorna heads inland where she meets some sketchy dudes. These dudes, who we will later learn are heirs to the infamous Lauzzana crime family, give her a bag full of drugs. It’s clear she hates this job but, for reasons we’ll learn later, has no choice but to do it. She heads back to the ship and stashes the bag in the ceiling of her bedroom.
A few stops later, late one evening, Lorna is approached by two scary dudes who inform her that their bag wasn’t where it was supposed to be. She says that’s impossible. She placed it where she always places it. Before the bad guys can press her on that, Kelly appears. He’s drunk, as usual, and the men tell him to get lost. When he says he won’t, they come at him. And boy is that a mistake. Kelly obliterates them with terrifying precision.
Kelly then takes Lorna aside and asks her about her old girlfriend, who went missing. It then becomes clear why Kelly is here. Lorna’s old girlfriend, who was killed by the Lauzzanas, is Kelly’s daughter.
Cut to Barcelona where the Lauzzanas, headed up by Emile and Cara, learn of the deaths of their men. Furious, they send their sons after him, along with several assassins. Bad idea. Kelly disposes of them as well, leaving only one son to regale his parents with the gruesome details of what happened.
We’re getting into some MAJOR SPOILERS going forward so read at your own risk. Lorna is forced to strike a deal with the Lauzzanas in order to get her young sister back from them. The deal is Kelly. So Kelly is brought in, shot dead by Cara, and presumably, our tale is over. OR IS IT!? Let’s just say that, 24 hours later, a howl is heard across the land. And that maybe, just maybe, Kelly isn’t finished killing yet.
I want to bring to light something that not a lot of people in the industry talk about. Because it’s important for screenwriters to know. When you’ve built a reputation, readers will give you more time at the beginning of your script.
They do this because they assume, even if the script starts slowly, you’ve proven yourself and therefore must be starting slowly for a reason.
Day Drinker takes 30 pages before it hits you with its big first plot point – Kelly has more going on than we thought he did, and is able to effortlessly take down three high level mob enforcers.
I would NEEEEEVVVVVVVER advise a new screenwriter to do this. Wait 30 pages before you write your first entertaining scene? Not a chance. The reader wouldn’t even get to page 5 before they gave up, much less page 30. It’s just me reminding you that new screenwriters operate under a stricter set of rules. Entertain them early. Entertain them often. If you want to pull a slow burn, sell a few scripts first.
So, why did this sell?
Well, I think that, for one, it’s a unique set up. I don’t think I’ve ever read a script that takes place on a cruise ship that’s going up and down the coast, focusing on a single bartender’s relationship with a passenger. I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest setup for a story. But in the world of movies where everybody’s seen everything, you get points for ANY kind of unique setup.
Something else that Dean did well here was the strategic way in which he revealed information. I think a lot of writers are eager to tell you what’s going on in their story. Good screenwriters are more judicious about revealing key information points.
For example, we meet this young girl who’s in Emile’s care. We know that she’s not an official part of the family and that some people, like the mother, dislike her. But we don’t know anything else.
It isn’t until 70 pages into the story, after Kelly takes out Lauzzana’s son, that we reveal this girl is Lorna’s sister. She’s been taken hostage by the family to ensure that Lorna does her job. You could’ve easily told us this 50-60 pages ago. But I would argue it hits harder when you tell us now.
Dean is a good judge of that. He really thinks about information as something that can be split up and dispersed of when he sees fit. And I believe all screenwriters should do the same. Don’t always reveal information at the most obvious moment.
Now, let’s get to the final twist. MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. I’m sorry but Kelly being a werewolf didn’t work for me. And, just like Dean has strengths, this seems to be one of his big weaknesses. I saw him do it in Tomorrow War and, to a certain extent, in The Gorge as well. He goes ONE MORE BRIDGE FURTHER than he’s set us up for.
Where was the werewolf thing set up?? And what are we supposed to believe here? That Kelly was both a world class secret agent assassin AND a werewolf?? I don’t even know how to process that information. It just doesn’t make sense and also feels like a cop out – a way to give Kelly one last hurrah.
Not that I didn’t want Kelly to win in the end. I was hoping beyond all hope that he somehow managed to survive Cara shooting him. But a werewolf feels too convenient.
Then again, this is Dean’s thing. He likes the supernatural. He likes going nuts towards the end of his stories. So it’s a creative choice. Some are going to like it. Some aren’t. I would just say that if you’re going to go this route, you need to set it up better. Cause it’s a HUGE ASK of the audience when your script has existed in the real world for 100 pages and now it’s going to exist in the supernatural world for the final 15.
I still liked this script, though. Despite its faults, it’s entertaining. It’s definitely higher quality than the current slate of Black List scripts I review on the site. Check it out if you can.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Show don’t tell. There comes a moment in the script where Kelly has to reveal that he’s Lorna’s dead girlfriend’s father. For big moments like this, avoid dialogue if possible. Dean does this by cleverly having Lorna take the locket off of her neck. Inside is a picture of Lorna’s girlfriend when she was a child with her parents. Lorna takes a closer look at the parents in the locket for the first time, and recognizes Kelly. This allows us to easily understand that Kelly is the father of Lorna’s dead girlfriend without a bunch of stilted exposition. Show don’t tell!
Calling it early…
Title: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE
Genre: Sci-Fi Comedy
Logline: Two feuding inventors with a lifelong rivalry use their newly created time machines to destroy the other’s past, present, and future, in order to be remembered in history as the father of time travel. TIME AFTER TIME meets GRUMPY OLD MEN
Time of Your Life is one of those ideas that looks like it’s going to be fun to write until you sit down and study the ingredients. Because I sat down to tried to come up with an abbreviated treatment for this script and spent the first 30 minutes staring at the screen with no idea what to do.
Part of the problem is the two protagonists thing. Focusing on two separate protagonists in the same movie is tricky. The easiest script to write is a script with a single protagonist. Cause all you have to do is establish the goal, the stakes, and the urgency for that character and off you go into your story, which will unwind in a straightforward manner.
The second easiest is a two-hander because it works exactly the same way as a single-protagonist narrative, except that you have two characters working towards the goal instead of one. But it will still follow that same basic formula of establishing a goal, attempting to achieve that goal, and running into a lot of obstacles along the way.
An ensemble script (Fast and Furious, Star Wars, Avengers, Toy Story) works by the same rules. The team works as one, essentially making the entire team the protagonist. As long as they all have the same goal (kill Thanos) the narrative will be easy to write.
But Time of Your Life is not that. You have two protagonists which means you have two stories. Which means you have to keep jumping back and forth between the characters as they attempt to pursue their goals (in this case, to take out each other). But because you’re splitting things up, you’re writing two 55-page scripts (each that follows a protagonist with a goal) as opposed to one 110 page script. In my experience, when you try and do that, the script becomes clunky.
So, how do you solve that problem? The most obvious way would be to have one scientist be your hero and the other the villain. We’d then give 65-70% of the screen time to the hero and 30% to the villain. This would allow us to create the GSU aspect of the story with our hero and our villain just keeps getting in the way.
I’m also having a hard time imagining what it is each character does to sabotage the other. I mean how dark do we want to go here? If we want to go full-on, then they’d go back in time to try and prevent the other from ever being born. Possibly even killing them when they’re a kid. It wouldn’t take much research to figure out when, in the 12 years that their rival was a child, a period where they were alone and vulnerable for 30 minutes. So, just go to that time and kill them. Problem solved.
If you want to make this a lighter execution of the concept and take murder off the table, the reader (and audience) is going to ask that question: “Why would that be off the table?” But let’s say it was.
If I were a producer guiding the development of this script, I would be wary of continuing to jump back in time a dozen times. It will get too messy. And it will reinforce the one time travel rule you don’t want floating around in the reader’s head, which is that it doesn’t matter if they succeed or fail because they can always jump back and try again.
Instead, I’d try and focus on one specific leverage point in the Scientist’s life and build the opposing scientist’s goal around that. For example, if Scientist A were to figure out that, back when Scientist B graduated from college, he had an amazing opportunity to join a tech company that would later be the place where he’d discover time travel, and he also learned that Scientist B was in love with a young woman at the time and had to make a decision between her and this company, then Scientist A could go back in time, befriend the girl, and try everything in his power to have her win over Scientist B, so he would never go off to work at the company.
You could then have Scientist A inadvertently start to fall for this girl himself. Then, in the future, you could have Scientist B figure out what Older Scientist A was doing and then go back to let his younger self know what’s going on. Maybe he even recruits the older version of this woman to help him convince his younger self not to end up with her. Now you’ve got five characters in one timeline all operating against one another, which feels more manageable to me than jumping back to the 90s to stop a scientist, then the 80s when that didn’t work, then the 70s when that didn’t work.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Back to the Future, which only goes to one time period, is simple and easy to follow, whereas Back to the Future 2, which goes to four different time periods, is clunky and not as enjoyable. So you need to find a structure like the one I presented above that’s actually manageable.
But I’m willing to stay open-minded. When I look at the AI-generated poster from above, all that stuff *does* look exciting. I would love to have dinosaurs in this story somehow. But can you do it in a way where it’s organic and makes sense? That’s the question. Colin has had this idea for a while but he can’t crack it. Well, Scriptshadow Nation, here’s your chance to crack it for him.
:)
Last week we had the official Logline Showdown. But there were so many good entries in the comedy genre, I decided to do a second showdown week just for the comedy entries. That’s what’s so great about Scriptshadow. You never know what’s going to happen next!! There are no rules!
Well, except that you have to vote for your favorite logline in the comment section and that you have until Sunday, February 9th, at 11:59pm Pacific Time to cast your vote.
Also, get those first pages ready for First Page Showdown, which is just 3 weeks away.
What: First Page Showdown
When: Friday, February 28
Deadline: Thursday, February 27, 10pm Pacific Time
Submit: A script title, a genre, and your first page
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Onto the competition. Maybe the funniest logline win!
Title: Higher Than The Moon
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Convinced by a cocaine loving alien that they can make a fortune in the intergalactic drug trade, ambitious New Jersey mobsters kidnap a disgraced NASA scientist and task him with developing a space program for the mob.
Title: Globe Busters
Genre: Comedy Drama
Logline: A lonely NY journalist reports at a flat earth convention and joins an extreme conspiracy society known as the Globe Busters where together they embark on an expedition to Antarctica to climb the Ice Wall and reach the edge of the world.
Title: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE
Genre: Sci-Fi Comedy
Logline: Two feuding inventors with a lifelong rivalry use their newly created time machines to destroy the other’s past, present, and future, in order to be remembered in history as the father of time travel. TIME AFTER TIME meets GRUMPY OLD MEN
Title: UNPROTECTED
Genre: Comedy/Action
Logline: A former unwitting mob doctor turned small-town veterinarian must rally his skeptical family to survive after FBI budget cuts kick them out of Witness Protection and put them back in the mob’s crosshairs.
Title: Meet Me in the Middle
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A transgender rights activist and a January 6th rioter find themselves seated next to each other on a chaotic holiday flight out of D.C., only to be quickly added to the No-Fly List. What follows is a planes, trains, and automobiles journey through middle America, where the unlikely duo must navigate their differences, find common ground, and muster a bit of compassion—all in the hope of keeping America’s holiday dinners drama-free.
Title: Adultery Alert
Genre: Romantic comedy (meets Minority Report)
Logline: In the near future, technology can predict cheating, allowing couples to break up before experiencing the trauma. So when Mark discovers, ahead of his fiancée, that one of them is going to cheat before their wedding, he will do everything he can to prevent it and keep her from finding out about the alert.
Title: T’d Up
Genre: Comedy
Forced into retirement and facing bankruptcy, the NBA’s most notorious trash-talker becomes a referee to claw his way back into the league and prove everyone wrong.
Title: IPOwen
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a down-on-his-luck insurance agent in a dead-end town loses his wife, his job and his apartment on the same day he turns 40, he decides to reboot his life by putting himself on the stock market, with an army of shareholders controlling his every decision.
Title: DEI HARD
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline: Due to DEI cutbacks, a portly and aging female assassin is unceremoniously shit-canned and forced to take a job working the front desk at hotel, but her past skills become helpful when the building is invaded by her former employers sent there to kill a star witness, her new asshole boss.
I get it.
I post the 10 winning loglines. And every single writer not responsible for those 10 loglines is upset with the picks. How could you pick *that* logline when *my* logline is so much better!?!
Well, I’m going to tell you.
I’m going to take you behind the scenes and go into my decision-making process for every single logline in last week’s Showdown.
What you’re going to realize is that, when it comes to someone wanting to read your script based on the logline, there are some things that are out of your hands.
Are we ready? Let’s get into it.
Title: U-666
Genre: Supernatural Horror/WW2/Submarine
Logline: In the final days of World War II, a German U-boat tasked with smuggling high-ranking officials and occult artifacts to Argentina faces chaos when the captain’s son is possessed by a malevolent entity unleashed from the cursed cargo. As the possessed officer wreaks havoc, killing crew and sabotaging the submarine, the captain must confront supernatural terror and Allied forces closing in to exorcise his son, save his soul, and prevent the U-boat from becoming a tomb for all onboard.
Reason I chose it: You guys may have heard me talk about it on this site. I’m all about the next big sub movie. Hollywood’s always looking for one of these. What I liked about this idea in particular was that it added a supernatural element, which made it high concept. I liked how the writer connected the cargo to the supernatural element. And also, I liked the World War 2 connection as it allowed for even more plot possibilities. It’s a big fun movie idea and, therefore, a no-brainer.
Title: The Offering
Genre: Horror Thriller
Logline: A casual boat trip turns into a fight for survival when a young couple learns that their host is a servant to a pair of sirens and is offering them up as a feast. It’s Dead Calm meets Jaws.
Reason I chose it: I chose this one for similar reasons. For starters, Dead Calm is one of my favorite underrated films. So, maybe there’s a lesson there. There’s no harm in adding a little movie crossover at the end of your logline. I still probably would’ve picked this without the crossover mention. But maybe not. However, the main thing is that the writer took a well-known setup – people out on a boat. And then they added a supernatural twist. Also, I find sirens fascinating. They’re an underutilized monster so their addition, as opposed to werewolves or vampires, offers the concept a little extra originality.
Title: The Shot Heard Around in Time
Genre: Comedy
Logline: After traveling back in time and accidentally killing George Washington in a drunken duel, a bookish historian has to assume the identity of America’s first president and win the Revolutionary War.
Reason I chose it: I went back and forth on this one exclusively because of the title. That title sounds weird with the phrase “around in time.” But every time I read the logline, I giggled. And, for a comedy logline, that’s my main criteria. Does it elicit a response from me? Laughing is great but giggling is still good. It helps, with a comedy logline, if you can immediately imagine someone in the role. And I immediately imagined Nate Bargatze. Also, I’m a sucker for a good comedic ‘impersonation’ premise. There are so many potential comedic scenarios that can come out of pretending to be someone you’re not. Especially when the stakes are this high.
Title: Nether Cop
Genre: Action, Horror
Logline: A clandestine division of the government, Dark Ops, whose agents employ a device that kills them for three minutes at a time, allowing them to battle demons on common ground.
Reason I chose it: Someone was coming after me HARD about Nether Cop in the comments so I feel like I owe them an explanation. You guys might know that I was a big fan of the concept for Flatliners. However, the problem with Flatliners was that they didn’t have anything after the premise. Med students kill themselves for research and then… what? They see spooky shit? That’s not a movie. Nether Cop is an answer to that. If your enemy is a demon and there’s no way to fight that demon as a human, it makes sense that you would have to kill yourself in order to battle them on their ground. It’s kind of got a Matrix-y vibe to it. And I love the time limit. It creates urgency for every fight. It’s hard enough to try and kill a demon. It’s another when you only have three minutes! And, unlike other high concept ideas, the time limit is organic. You’ve got about 3 minutes before you need to be brought back to life, or else you’re dead for good. I just think it’s a really cool idea.
Title: LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After arresting an illegal immigrant, a border patrol guard must team up with him when a Mexican drug cartel lays siege to the border station intent on killing him.
Reason I chose it: You guys know I like the temporary team-up between the good guy and the bad guy. In screenwriting, you’re always looking for things that provide the most amount of conflict. The temporary team-up not only gives you tons of conflict but it’s effortless conflict. You don’t have to artificially construct scenes to create conflict. It’s there all the time. With that said, temporary team-ups are a dime-a-dozen in this town. So, you need to come up with a fresh situation. This logline did. I have not seen this situation before with the temporary team-up gambit. Easy choice to make the showdown.
Title: In the Crease
Genre: Sports/True Story
Logline: In an urban community torn apart by drugs and violence, a disgraced ex-Ivy League lacrosse player seeks redemption by coaching an inner city lacrosse team.
Reason I chose it: One of the things I’ve tried to make clear in my search for great scripts is that I’m looking for MOVIES – scripts that have a template that studios can market because they’ve made those movies before. The true sports movie has been a staple in Hollywood for decades. They love making these movies. So, from there, you just try and find a sports combination that hasn’t been done before. Enter “In the Crease.” It’s perfect. What better irony are you going to get in a sports idea than a bunch of inner city kids playing in the upscale white collar sport of Lacrosse? I think it’s a gangbusters idea. But I knew it wouldn’t get a lot of votes. People who love movies don’t tend to like THESE movies. THESE movies are more about the family in Iowa who goes to the theater four times a year and watches a bunch of Netflix. They would love In The Crease.
Title: 221C BAKER STREET
Genre: Action-Comedy
Logline: When Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go missing, the city’s only other detective duo finally get their shot at glory just as a criminal mastermind launches a plan to bring London to its knees.
Reason I chose it: I’m always looking for fun spins on old IP and this is one of the better ones I’ve come across . Cause I’ve seen EVERY Sherlock Holmes idea you can imagine. But an “Other Guys” spin on Holmes and Watson? Where they’re trying to solve the disappearance *OF* Holmes and Watson? That’s genius! I can see the scenes in my head of this bumbling duo, barely able to tie their shoes, trying to solve the case. So much comedic potential there. The only thing I’m worried about is that it would make you think of that Will Ferrel bomb, Holmes & Watson. So you would need to imagine it in a way where it doesn’t feel like that film at all. Oh, and the title of the movie needs to be the names of the replacements. Like, “Clodsworth & Jones.”
Title: I’m With Cupid
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Logline: When an unlucky in love schlub finds out that his roommate used be Cupid, he coaxes him out of retirement to help him win the woman of his dreams… Only for a rusty Cupid to shoot himself in the foot and fall for the same girl.
Reason I chose it: Maybe you’re seeing a trend here. I’m looking for ideas that realistically could be MOVIES. Cupid is a movie character. Everybody knows who he is. Building a romantic comedy around him feels like a sure-thing. However, I do come across a lot of Cupid rom-com ideas. So it’s about finding a fresh one. And this is the first one I’ve read in a while that I’ve liked enough to feature on the site. The kicker for me was roping Cuipd into a love triangle. Love triangles are packed with conflict, since the conflict extends to three different relationships. I just think there’s something here.
Parasail (winner) – See my review
Title: Burner Phone
Genre: Found footage/Thriller
Logline: When a teenage drug dealer fails to trash a burner phone after a deal gone
wrong got an undercover cop killed, he has only one hour to retrieve it and erase
an incriminating video before his boss cut all the loose ends (including him). Told
in real time from the POV of the phone screen.
Reason I chose it: In retrospect, this logline was probably a little too sloppy to include. But you know I love a good real-time concept and when, in addition to that, the logline was capped with “told from the POV of the phone screen,” I thought, “That’s too fun to pass up.” So I included it.
Title: FORGIVE ME, FATHER
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A priest’s illegitimate son uses his father’s confessional to extort money from the wealthy congregation, but when he hears a confession that implicates a hitman in a string of high-profile murders, he attempts his most lucrative and dangerous extorsion yet.
Reason I chose it: This is an example of me liking the first half of the logline so much that I maybe didn’t pay enough attention to the second half. That happens to me RARELY but it does happen. I just loved the idea of taking advantage of confessions. I could imagine someone really doing that and yet I’d never heard of the idea before. Blackmail people for their secrets. Now, if you heard a hitman say he killed a bunch of people, I’m not sure you wanna mess with that guy. Maybe that’s the one guy you don’t extort? Then again, it could be interesting what happens when he tries to dance with the devil.
Title: Seven Minutes in Kevin
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a group of misfit high schoolers discover a closet that acts as a portal into the body of Kevin, their school’s popular golden boy, they must navigate his perfect life while trying to keep their secret—and their sanity—intact.
Reason I chose it: Best title of the year and it will probably retain that title for the entirety of 2025. But what’s great about this idea is that even beyond the clever title, it still works. Who, back in high school, didn’t want to experience the world through the eyes of the most popular kid in school? And a bunch of nerds fighting to experience that and the shenanigans they cause as a result seems like it would be comedic bugaloo. My only worry is that 7 minutes isn’t a lot of time. But maybe, if the movie took place within a limited time-frame (the day of the biggest party of the year)? Then 7 minutes could work.
And there you have it!
Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do next Thursday. I’m going to go over 10 of the loglines that DIDN’T make it. And I’m going to ask you guys for help on what those 10 loglines should be. I noticed there were several loglines posted in the comments that commenters liked. So, if there were any popular loglines, I want the writer to post their logline in the comments. And if any of those get 5 or more up-votes, I’ll include them.
Also, if you’re just someone who thought you had a worthy logline and didn’t get picked, put it up for competition in the comments and the same rules apply. If it gets 5 up-votes, I will include it in the list.
Otherwise, I’ll choose the ones that I want to break down.
